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I repeat it over and over again as my granite muscles burn, pushing my massive monster form faster through the night sky.
I careen into the parking lot to the painfully rhythmic beating of now three pairs of wings. I don’t see Julianna, only a gray, undulating mass of stone in the center of the parking lot. It isn’t just Maximus. He is joined by two other gargoyles as well, one with a double-pronged tail like Knox’s that I recognize as Vanguard, and the other without horns is Flynt. They were positioned on either side of Maximus on the fortress. There isn’t time to be shocked by the revelation that more of us survived the fall, not when their wings shift, giving me a small glimpse between their monstrous bodies, and I see Julianna’s prone form under them.
She is curled into the fetal position, her knees hugged to her chest and her head tucked downwards. Her gold dress has lost its luster in the dirt, and the only spot of color on her is the vibrant splashes of red that are the cuts and scrapes at her feet, elbows, and shins, the blood marking her as the fighter she is.
“Baby girl.”
My murmur turns into a roar that shakes the ground, kicking up rocks and setting off car alarms. Every muscle in my body is tensed and ready for action. My claws dig into the asphalt, and my wings expand to their full width. I’m outnumbered, but I was loud enough that it won’t stay that way long.
I don’t wait for my brothers.
“Flynt,” Maximus commands as he turns to face me, the same menacing smirk on his face I saw in the stairwell, “handle Titan.”
Flynt may not have horns, but his claws are long, curved, and viciously sharp, and his tail is spiked. He charges at me with blind, obedient fury on his face.
Hundreds of years ago, I would’ve seen that look on a fellow gargoyle and respected it, but now, I just see the face of some monster who hurt Julianna, and my vision goes red.
My fist makes contact with Flynt’s jaw the moment he is within arms distance. I hit him with the entire force of my fear. His stone jaw cracks, and his body is launched over half a dozen cars only to hit the brick wall of the neighboring building. I smell his Strange dark blood on my knuckles, but I keep moving forward.
I’ll keep moving until I have her.
Before Maximus has time to register his unconscious brother, I charge at him. My claws are poised in the air as I leap, and as my heavy body crashes down on his, I feel the tips of them sliced through stone muscle. He hollers in pain and shock as I slash at him again and again.
“Get away from her, Maximus,” I yell, my voice feral.
I grab him from behind, my claws digging into the granite flesh of his chest. He jerks his head back to ram at me with his short, pointed horns, but I tuck my head in and he misses. I throw our bodies to the side and far away from Julianna. Even in the chaos, I focus on her. She is breathing. It’s shallow and rapid, but I pray to the Gods that it’s a good sign.
“Hold her, Vanguard,” Maximus yells, and there is not enough fear in his voice.
I snarl and launch myself into the air, holding onto the writhing gargoyle tightly. I fly just above the neighboring four-story office building. We are still in the air, the apex of our arc, and Maximus unleashes a torrent of angry curses. As I dive for the ground, all of his spiteful words are lost to the whistle of the wind as it speeds past my ears.
The asphalt erupts into a splintered crater with his face at the very pit of it.
“You don’t want Julianna, Maximus. You want me,” I ground out the words close to his ear, my claws holding his head in the dirt and my kneeling body on his lower back. “Call your brother off, and you and I can handle this one-on-one.”
I expect to hear his muffled words against the rubble, but his claws dig into the ground, and his body tenses under mine. He moves quicker than I anticipate and is able to lift his upper body several inches from the ground, enough that he can speak far clearer than I like.
“No, Titan. I want the Keystone, but maybe I should take your precious Julianna too.”
He laughs, and my fist connects with the center of his back, right between his stubby wings, stealing the breath from his chest and silencing him. His arms give out, and his face lands back in the dirt. He uses his natural speed to his advantage, trying to spin beneath me. I’m thrown off balance and have to claw at the broken bits of asphalt and dirt to right myself. He hits me with his wings, the sharp, taloned edge of his right one cutting across my cheek and jaw.
Leaping into the air, I gather my feet beneath me and regain my balance.
“How ironic.” Maximus spits dirt from his mouth and wipes dust from milky gray eyes. “Last I saw you, you were doing everything in your power to protect the Relic Room. Now you are doing everything to protect a human. It seems our roles are reversed.”
“She is just an innocent human, Maximus,” I growl, shaking the dirt from my wings. His words don’t make sense. There were never any human visitors to the fortress, but I don’t have time to worry about it. I move into a fighting stance, head tucked, claws raised, as he circles me. “Let her go.”
Maximus throws himself at me, claws first. His movements are wild and rash. I fly over him, avoiding their sharp point, and I lash out with my tail. The hard blunt tip of it cuts a long gash in his left wing. He howls in pain, but it morphs into a cruel, frenzied laugh.
“She is not just an innocent human, Titan, and you do not protect her like she isjustanything. No…” He shakes his head. “I know that look in your eyes. She is everything.”
His words are more true than he knows, but I won’t say it to him. I don’t want to put Julianna in even more danger.
Maximus has changed since I last saw him. He was meticulous and calculating before. He’d planned his attack on the fortress, but now, his control is gone, and his movements are chaotic.
What has happened to him in the last four hundred years?
I move to attack Maximus again when Julianna’s whimpers, so small in comparison to the echoing car alarms, slice through the air.
